PARIS (AP)--An Airbus A380 superjumbo test flight heading from France to the North African desert was cut short Tuesday as a precaution, the plane manufacturer said.

The jet was scheduled to fly to the airport of Tozeur-Nefta in southern Tunisia, but the pilot returned to the plane's base in Toulouse, France, soon after takeoff because of a "minor incident," said Airbus spokeswoman Anne Galabert. She declined to elaborate.

Galabert said the shortened flight was a "non-event" that received attention only because journalists waiting in Tunisia were disappointed when they learned they would not see the world's largest passenger plane.

The decision to turn back was "something that is completely normal in the testing phase," she said, adding that the flight will be rescheduled for a later date.

Five A380s have clocked more than 1,800 hours of test flights, she said.

The A380 program has been under close scrutiny since delays in the long-awaited superjumbo sent stock in parent company European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. tumbling more than 25% in June. They also led to a major management reshuffle at the Franco-German company, and customer and investor confidence was rattled.

Airbus has confirmed that one of its A380 test aircraft was forced to return from a test flight to Toulouse after a landing gear door sensor blocked its retraction...

"...The sensor sensed a mismatch in the position of the main landing gear doors," Airbus says. The incident did not involve Goodrich the landing gear itself. Engineers are inspecting the sensor to establish the cause...

It's good that those glitches happen when still in the testing phase instead of being discovered when the a/c is in operational service.
It saves some money down the line by not having to solve the problems when several units are already flying with the airlines.

I doubt any airliner in development has ever made all of its certification test flights without ever having had to return to base for a minor problem.

Quoting Beaucaire (Reply 7):..at least we now know that the small airport of Tozeur-Nefta is A380 compliant.... (3200 meter runway..)

Quoting Francoflier (Reply 8):I doubt any airliner in development has ever made all of its certification test flights without ever having had to return to base for a minor problem.

Even major problems. Check out an excerpt on an early 757 test flight...

One came during an icing test on the 757. The worst part of this test is waiting for the right conditions, when big storms come in off the Pacific and wet air blows up the side of the Cascade Mountains. That wet air gets colder and colder. Fly through that stuff and 3 to 4 inches of ice can quickly form on an airplane's skin, disrupting the airflow.

The plane is in its landing configuration, with gear and wing flaps down.

On this 757 flight, Higgins was flying about 1,000 feet above the mountains and the jet was picking up a lot of ice when the two engines red-lined and the plane began shaking.

"I decided it was time to get out of there," Higgins said.

But at that moment the flight test engineer on the plane came rushing up to the cockpit and told Higgins icing conditions were perfect and to keep the jet exactly where it was.

"No," Higgins told him, "we are getting out of this."

He told his co-pilot to radio air traffic control and get immediate clearance to climb. A controller denied the request, saying there was a plane above them.

Higgins told the co-pilot to tell the controller they were going up. Now.

He gave the plane power, but it wouldn't climb. The engines were making a strange noise.

Because of all the ice on the plane, Higgins had not wanted to raise the landing gear or retract the flaps, fearing something would break. But now he had no choice.

The 757 slowly began to climb out of the ice, but power on one engine had to be reduced to idle.

Later, when the 757 was safely back on the runway, Higgins inspected the engine. The ice had caused severe damage to the fan blades and other parts.

Quoting Ikramerica (Reply 12):This 757 report was what they were actually testing for, and conditions got worse than they wanted very quickly. It was not a malfunction, but the purpose of the test!

True, but shows how hairy testing can get. For a real classic, how about the 747-100 out over the Pacific in late 1969 on a test flight when someone spilt their coffee on the centre panel and killed all the nav gear, leaving them completely lost. Of course, they just put the compass on E until they came into range of land-based VORs, but still, effectively lost, decades before TCAS. I don't know but I'd bet the production 747 has lots of cupholders.

Tunis, Aug. 29, (BNA) Tunisian Airport Authorities announced here on Tuesday that a test flight for Airbus 380 passenger plane to Nefta International Airport in the southwest of Tunisia was postponed to an unspecified date due to technical failure.
The Tunisian News Agency reported on the Commander of Nefta Airport as saying that the plane coming from Toulouse was supposed to land at the airport at 9 a.m. today but nothing as such happened, adding that the airport was notified on flight delay at about 7 a.m. and then informed about the postponement of the flight to an unspecified date.